Rape Case Shows High Value To Public Of Cameras In Court

COMMENTARY

December 29, 1991|By JAMES J. KILPATRICK, Universal Press Syndicate

It was an ordeal for Willie and a worse ordeal for Patti, but the nation`s most publicized rape case had its up side. Millions of TV viewers benefited from their first real-world look at a criminal trial.

Television is here to stay in our courtrooms, and a welcome development it is. Forty-five of the 50 states now permit some TV coverage -- 25 of them in their trial courts, another 20 in their appellate courts. Federal courts in six districts are in the midst of an experiment that promises to open federal jurisprudence.

We`ve come a long way since the intolerable circus that fouled up the Texas trial of Billie Sol Estes in 1962. Estes was a high-rolling swindler who had gained national notoriety. Relatively speaking, TV was in its infancy then.

At the pretrial proceedings in Tyler, as the Supreme Court would observe, ``cables and wires were snaked across the courtroom floor, three microphones were on the judge`s bench and others were beamed at the jury box and the counsel table.`` TV crews and still photographers disrupted the proceedings.

Things were a little calmer when the trial itself began in October, but even so, the cumulative effect was to deny Estes the ``judicial serenity and calm`` to which he was entitled. By a vote of 5-4 the Supreme Court reversed his conviction. Chief Justice Earl Warren, in a concurring opinion, denounced TV coverage as ``desecration of a courtroom.``

Warren was so upset by the very idea that he employed one of the few exclamation marks ever to appear in his opinions. He feared that TV ``not only offers a temptation to judges to use the bench as a vehicle for their own ends, but offers the same temptation to every participant in the trial, be he defense counsel, prosecutor, witness or juror!`` Some of these functionaries ``undoubtedly`` would play to the TV audience.

It hasn`t happened that way at all. In West Palm Beach, the TV camera was a quiet spectator. No cables were snaked across the courtroom. The microphones were the same microphones regularly in use. None of the participants showed the slightest indication of playing to the audience.

The result was that viewers got a sense of the real thing. We heard riveting testimony from Patti Bowman, the accuser, and from William Kennedy Smith, the accused.

Viewers could yawn through the tedious testimony of various expert witnesses. We saw a highly competent judge, determined to see that no error on her part would result in a mistrial. We saw a prosecuting attorney botch her case with irrelevant and repetitive questions. Every law student in the land could learn from Roy Black`s cross-examinations.

This is the way it ought to be. Some judges -- especially federal judges with lifetime tenure -- get it in their swelled heads that the courtrooms belong to them. They dwell in the intoxicating clouds that hover atop Olympus. No mere taxpayers allowed!

In point of fact the courts belong to the people who pay for them. We ought to have the same access to the courts that we have to Congress and the executive agencies. All this highfalutin talk of the ``majesty of the law`` is piffle. Chief Justice William Rehnquist puts on his pants just like the rest of us.

Thanks to Court TV, a new program developed by Merrill Brown, Steven Brill, Fred Graham and others, cable viewers in subscribing cities have had an opportunity in recent months to see 70 trials in whole or in part. About three-fourths of these have been criminal trials, one-fourth civil trials. They have covered a spectrum from product liability to police brutality. No complaints have been heard that TV coverage in any way has violated due process of law.

Following the Smith trial, a few viewers complained that the testimony of the principal characters was too explicit for family viewing. Some complained that the defendant was treated unfairly because his name and face were shown, while Patti Bowman`s name was bleeped and her face was masked.

I would reject both complaints. Sleaze is sleaze. Boys will be boys and girls will be girls. This is the way the world is. Those of us in the media have some decency left. We were not going to identify the accuser publicly. Since the trial she voluntarily has come forward.

It might be cynically said, now that the trial is over, that no one gained but the lawyers. Not so. All of us who watched the trial on TV benefited from seeing justice well served.